New Music Tuesday: Grizzly Bear

It's no easy task to finally get to hear and review one of my most anticipated albums of the year (second only to Midlake's upcoming LP), but that just makes it all the more interesting, don't you think? Anyway, anybody who has so much as dipped their toe in the indie blogosphere (as much as I hate the word) knows that the two records prematurely vying for "album of the year" are Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion, and this, Grizzly Bear's latest offering, Veckatimest.

Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest [Warp, 2009]


The main thing to know about Grizzly Bear, is that their music is very atmospheric-- I once told a friend that Grizzly Bear know how to utilize silence better than any other rock band in modern music. That was most certainly true about their 2006 masterpiece, Yellow House, and certainly holds up here, though to a lesser extent. Still ever-present are the bone-chilling harmonies of Ed Droste and Dan Rossen, along with the sparse, hollow drumming of Chris Bear. The band sticks to what it is good at in terms of song structure, with tracks that plod along to a majestic build and often-epic finales. However, a lot of my favorite elements from their old records have gone missing-- piano with a sound as if it was played in the parlor of an abandoned mansion, banjo, woodwinds, and (tasteful) glitchy electronic noise. Still, I do have to give the band credit for somehow managing to use steel drums in multiple tracks and not have them suck.

So let's get straight to the songs: are they good? Yes, they are! Well, most of them, anyway. Opener "Southern Point" comes out of the gate rocking, with organ, fuzz bass, and swirling guitars galore. The band keeps the energy high with the harmony- and omnichord-laden "Two Weeks" (see the video for it here c/o Stereogum). Next, a step back in intensity with the haunting "All We Ask," which builds at the end, and carries over into my favorite track, "Fine For Now." By this point in the album, I was practically drooling.

The one thing I hear most from Grizzly Bear's detractors is that they find the band "boring," and unfortunately, I have to agree with this assessment on a few tracks of Veckatimest. As the album draws near its middle, some of the tracks start equating sparseness with boringness. "Cheerleader" and "Dory" plod along through typical song structures, never really building to anything, and never really reaching a moment of musical beauty seen in some of their more enjoyable minimal tracks (take "Colorado" from Yellow House, for example). "Ready, Able" breathes some life back into the middle chunk of the album, but it's all but sucked back out by the next two largely forgettable tracks.

Fortunately, the album closes with a trio of very excellent tracks (including Pitchfork-perfect "While You Wait for the Others"), and you're left with a desire to go back and find the subtle layers only found on multiple listens that are so essential to Grizzly Bear records. It's interesting that Veckatimest should be released in the summer, when it feels a lot like a sleepy fall or winter record, and that its rival, Merriweather Post Pavilion, dropped in January and feels like a summertime party. Both records have their merits, and rather than bash one and love the other, I'm just going to be glad that Grizzly Bear more or less lived up to their hype and that 2009 has been a pretty great year for music so far.

download:   Fine For Now
download:   Southern Point

Grizzly Bear play the Berklee Performance Center on June 3, and this kid has a 1st row 1st mezzanine ticket. I highly expect this show to be amazing, and recommend that you check them out in Boston or wherever they are playing near you!